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Comment by vmception | Hacker News Reader

Disney didn't push for copyright extensions during this congressional session specifically because of the heightened awareness of them doing it last time.

There are lots of laws the public doesn't care about and all you have to do is get the legislature to "not disagree", after you get your pet project out of committee. So as long as people don't notice, you can get pretty much anything passed in the US. It works even better when all the well funded special interests hilariously decided to move to the far fringe edges of their respective parties and will never get consensus. Lowers the barrier for consensus for the rest of us since most of Congress is just waiting for things that can have bi-partisan support. Been a fun and cheaper than usual few years for me.......

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Disney didn't push for copyright extensions this session because absolutely nothing was going to get done this session. The idea that the median voters cares even a whit about copyright extension is one you'll have to bring evidence to support. It seems unlikely to be true.

Mainly because they’re just going to use trademark rules that let them keep their most valuable brands as long as people think “Disney” when they see it. Them using the Mickey head everywhere isn’t a coincidence.

https://priceonomics.com/how-mickey-mouse-evades-the-public-...

> According a precedent set in a 1979 court case, a trademark can protect a character in the public domain as long as that character has obtained what is called “secondary meaning.” This means that the character and the company are virtually inseparable: upon seeing it, one will immediately identify it with a brand.

Yes, only 182 bills have been enacted this session, which is very low.

You'd be surprised what you can squeeze into a budget reconciliation bill if you care enough, the government has to reopen eventually.

Honestly, enough people just don't.

But you can.

Can what? Care about precisely which 75+ year old movies I can watch without paying $2 for the privilege? What makes you think this could ever be a serious motivating issue for the electorate?

you can squeeze any law into other laws, they are called riders. in some cases the barrier of entry is extremely low because the host-bill is required to open the government or something very time sensitive.

the point is that the electorate doesn't care and you don't want them to.

A lot of people, including myself, believe that adding completely unrelated items onto a billis completely unacceptable. Putting a high priority bill at risk for an unrelated pet topic is selfish and wrong.

Its also contrary to all best parliamentary practice and should be ruled out of order.

Oh I am flabbergasted and continually amused at the concept, but it is still a tool available for use

Ok great. Brb I'll be calling my congressman for my local pork needs to be amended to the next defense budget bill. While I'm at it i could use some extra barrels for shipping.

Most people do not have this purported easy access to Capitol Hill it is not trivial to get it done under a certa8n amount of fiscal influence. Please qualify your use of the word easy with numbers please, else its just empty words

As I wrote earlier, easier than before because the country is so polarized and incumbent special interests decided - like the general population - to move to the far fringes of their ideology as a future investment into the country leaving representatives pretty unoccupied this session. Not extremely easy because Congress is not passing many bills.

Enough voters care about copyright that they sunk SOPA in a few weeks (which shocked DC). IP activism also played a major part in stopping the TPP.

For a significant number of voters, intellectual property policy now works like a social issue, in terms of the intensity of emotion and effort it elicits.

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